Google/Apple/Nokia: The Reason Software Patents Are Such a Bad Idea
When Google released it few months ago, I wrote a piece on the Nexus 7 that focused on how it had been crippled.
I love my Nexus 7. I use it all the time, and eventually I even figured out how to circumvent Google’s attempts to keep the Nexus 7 from acting as a voice device. But I’ve continued to wonder why Google went out of their way to make the Nexus 7 less than it could be.
With yesterday’s release of Google’s latest devices and a new version of Android, we got a clue to the purpose behind the dumbing down of the Nexus 7: this is all about software patents, and a defensive posture stifling business change.
It’s actually a reverse explanation, but Google’s afraid of a patent for the way phones are used. Nokia has a patent that says that only they can sell phones with the ability to act differently for different users. And although the lines between phones, tablets and computers continue to blur to the point that the names these devices are know by have all but stopped meaning anything, the patent trolls are running business change.
It’s like when inmates run insane asylums
Software Patents are a bad idea. They reduce innovation, and protect ideas that aren’t deserving of protection. And while I believe that certain applications of the law to defend patents make sense, when patent trolls control ideas, we have a problem.
The distinctions between the devices we use are becoming little more than a matter of taste. Microsoft Windows 8 and their new tablets are a prime example — one I’ll be writing about later this week. Surface isn’t better than iPad, nor Android. None of these approaches to tablets are actually “better” than the others. They’re just . . . different. And the only intelligent approach to that issue that we’ve seen lately was the UK Judge who ordered Apple to apologize to Samsung for suing them.
Go ahead, buy whatever devices you like; well teach you how to use them. and don’t worry too much about Intellectual Property lawsuits, because they wash out.
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